Robert Leighton

When we consider this fighting life aright, we need not be dissuaded from loving it. We rather have need to be strengthened with patience to go through and to fight on with courage and assurance of victory; still fighting in a higher strength than our own, against sin within and troubles without. This is the great scope of this epistle.  Against sin the apostle instructs us at the beginning of this chapter. And here again, against suffering… He urges us to be armed with the same mind that was in Christ… The words to the end of the chapter contain grounds of encouragement and consolation for the children of God in sufferings, especially in suffering for God.
—Robert Leighton “A practical commentary on 1 Peter”

Faith is the root of all graces, and of all obedience and holiness….Hope looks out for [the fulfillment] of divine promises. The gospel, being held by faith, provides a hope that has substance and reality in it.
The work of grace may evidence to you the truth of your hope; but the ground it fastens on is Jesus Christ, in whom all our rights and evidences hold good: his death assuring us of freedom from condemnation, and his life and possession of glory being the foundation of our hope (Heb. 6:19). If you would have it immutable, rest it there. Lay all this hope on him, and when assaulted fetch all your answers for it from him. For it is “Christ in you” that is your “hope of glory.” (Col. 1:27).
—-Robert Leighton “A practical commentary on 1 Peter.”

The behaviour [of this suffering Christ] was intended for an example. He left his footsteps as a copy, to be followed by us. Every step of his is a letter of this copy… a pure and perfect copy of obedience in clear and great letters, in his own blood. His whole life is our rule: his obedience, holiness, meekness, and humility, are our copy.
If we neglect his example set before us, we cannot enjoy any right assurance of his sufferings for us… The apostle refers to the words of that Evangelist among the Prophets, Isaiah 53:4, about his bearing “our sins in his own body on the tree…” This was his business—not only to rectify sinful man by his example, but to redeem him by his blood.
—Robert Leighton “A practical commentary on 1 Peter.”

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